Boeing To Sell Parts of Digital Aviation Solutions Business – Including Jeppesen Unit – to Thoma Bravo for $10.6 Billion
The deal - announced one day prior to earnings - marks the first major portfolio transaction under Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg.
(Arlington County, Virginia) Boeing (NYSE: BA) announced that it will sell portions of its Digital Aviation Solutions business, including navigation unit Jeppesen, to private equity firm Thoma Bravo for $10.55 billion in cash.
Photo of a Jeppesen chart featured on the foreflight app courtesy of Foreflight.
The deal also involves Boeing’s Foreflight, AerData and OzRunways subsidiaries, according to Bloomberg.
Per Bloomberg, Jeppesen, which provides interactive flight plans, is profitable and commands a broad customer base from airlines to amateur pilots; Boeing acquired the business in 2000 for $1.5 billion.
Jeppesen is among the most valuable assets that the planemaker is seeking to shed to lower its debt load, according to Bloomberg.
Boeing purchased aviation navigation app Foreflight in 2019.
Executives are expected to provide more detail about the divestiture’s impact on Boeing Global Services, the planemaker’s only profitable division, when the company reports quarterly results tomorrow (Apr. 23) before the market opens.
The sale “provides an insurance policy on liquidity in late 2025,” when Boeing is expected to return to positive cash flow, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts George Ferguson and Melissa Balzano said in a note. “None of the businesses in the deal appear core as Boeing retains aircraft and fleet-specific data to support the commercial fleet operators.”
Other private equity firms that had showed interest in the Jeppensen deal included Advent, Blackstone Inc. Carlyle Group Inc., Veritas Capital and Warburg Pincus; the unit had also attracted interest from Honeywell International, TransDigm Group Inc., RTX Corp. and GE Aerospace, according to Bloomberg.
